Vashisht Day 

Vashihst Day. In the morning I walked to Amrita’s guesthouse hoping she would join me on a sojourn to Vashisht, but she was too tired and not up to it. I took off on my own. 

The path to the waterfalls was recommended by everyone as an easy-does-it trail, completed in a few hours and a must-do for every traveler visiting Vashisht…

Hearing Israelis rave about the place, I expected a very picturesque village, but everything was full of dung, or maybe I was over-sensitive that day and it bothered me. Additionally, on the way to the beautiful falls, there was a river crossing with an underpass and a grid. Anbelievable amounts of plastic and other junk were trapped in it. Was painful to watch.

This lady was preparing for milking in the greenery, unhindered by our presence:

Point finger at polluter

A bit later on, though, there were signs posted on trees: 

Point your finger at polluter

A girl must break up if boyfriend is polluter

You are invieted to read my post series, “Point Your Finger at Polluter – Who Cleans India” ,that was inspired by these adverts. 

The signs were in English, so the message was obviously lost on a big percentage of the “polluter” population who can’t read English or can’t read at all.

Nonetheless, the walk to the falls was beautiful.

A tea to solve all problems

The path meandered through the forest, mostly in an uphill direction. At one point there was a nice viewpoint where a small joint was advertising “Health Tea”. The health tea for stomach problems –  wild English thyme, which the guy was growing behind the stand and recommended highly – was good. I sat in the sukka-like structure overlooking the forest and the river, sipped the neutral-tasting tea and conversed with the owner, who opined that his tea could heal just about anything.

“Herbal tea” for every purpose

Socializing on the path

Right next to the Sukkah I met a nice Israeli couple with two children – Ela and Yiphtah. They were very nice. The children played falling on daddy, and daddy played catch. How nice to trust the person taking care of you. How nice to have a caring, loving family. I chatted with the kids. Then came the inevitable:

“Do you have grandchildren?”

Oh, I don’t have control over this….

Still, they were very nice. The Italian couple that I met a little higher up was not. I guess it’s insulting to be assumed to be French, but not a good enough reason in my opinion to be obnoxious.

The devotional aspect

I arrived with the Italians at the waterfalls, which were nice but nothing spectacular. I walked up by myself a little bit trying to get closer to the falls, but it was too complex.

The Lower Falls, Vashisht

What I liked, though, was the small shrine – an old stone structure on top of which women’s shawls were draped. Red. Underneath, there was a small cave for incense and offerings. Also an ancient huge tree close by – probably sacred.

  Shrines and sacred tree at Vashisht Falls

More social life

On the way back I met a couple of Israelis on the path – a middle-aged woman with her very good looking 30-something son. They immediately attached themselves to me. The son wanted me to keep his mother company. She came  for a month’s period to join him on his trip. I wasn’t very animated, but went along. They travelled together to Spiti renting a jeep, changing location daily. She suffered from the excessive movement. Hearing her made me worry about my prospective trip to Leh. [But it was GREAT! See my posts about the trip from Manali to Leh: Himachal, Ladakh]

Further down the path towards town, we saw a very pinky 4-year-old girl running joyfully on the hill with two Hindu boys. An Israeli family rented a house outside of Vashisht for the entire summer (four months).  The girl was sad because the next day they were traveling to Southern India and from there flying home and she had to say her good-by…